Saturday, February 16

9 posts in this topic

A review of Ballet San Jose in "Don Quixote" by Rita Felciano in The San Jose Mercury News.

The production's opening night performance on Friday started with a surprise. The day before, Alexsandra Meijer, who was scheduled to perform the lead female role of Kitri, was hurt. (She is expected to return for the Sunday matinee.) So petite soloist Junna Ige jumped into the breach. Her only opportunity to work with José Manuel Carreño dancing the male lead Basilio was at the dress rehearsal.

Despite a glitch during the fouettés in the third act, Ige turned the challenge into a triumph. She is a refined yet strong technician who sails through the air like a feather and knocks out sequential pirouettes and staccato steps as if carving them into space. Fearless in her attacks and yet soft and yielding into back bend, Ige brought all of these qualities to an adorable Kitri.

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A review of Orlando Ballet in "Hollywood En Pointe" by Matthew J. Palm in The Orlando Sentinel.

"Hollywood en Pointe" boasts familiar music from big movies: a hip-swiveling "Cabaret," a stylish James Bond number, an athletic crowd pleaser to the "Mission: Impossible" theme. But the most intense moments are found in less bombastic numbers.

Maybe the spirit of Valentine's Day is lingering like a lover's perfume, but the show's duets are especially resonant.

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Overall the principal roles in Beauty were very well danced. Technically the dancers were stupendous. All the soloists brought vivacity and focus to their respective roles and should be applauded for their bravura performances. My problem with this program lay predominately with the dancing of the corps de ballet. The sharp and jagged clarity for which the company is renowned doesn't quite fit this particular style of ballet and, unsurprisingly, I found myself yearning for the rounded refinement of the Russian Mariinsky.

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Any way you look at it, the Smuin Gala always measures up to the company’s sparkling reputation. With Willie L. Brown Jr. on board this year’s Honorary Chair, the gala raised over $300,000 for the Smuin Ballet Company.

Over 250 guests donned Rat Pack attire for the January 26th Gala themed “Fly Me To The Moon” held at the Four Seasons Hotel. Ladies stunned in sweeping gowns and dark red lipstick, while men sported fedoras and dangling bow ties.

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Marguerite and Armand is the concluding work in a programme of five Ashton ballets. La Valse, with its André Levasseur designs, looks as ravishing as ever, but the ballet is performed as a straight display piece, with no concession to the underlying fatalism of Ravel's score or to Ashtonian upper-body style. Méditation from Thaïs is a brief snatch of pseudo-oriental whimsy set to Massenet. Leanne Benjamin does her sultry, chiffon-veiled best opposite Valeri Hristov, but the ballet was only ever a pièce d'occasion, and that occasion is now long passed.

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The music, composed by Carl Davis, reflects the rhythms of the East and manages to sound both traditional and contemporary - rather like a blockbuster film score crossed with a classic masterpiece.

This new addition to the company’s repertoire, which enraptured the first night audience, is sure to delight families for years to come. It could even rival the much-loved Nutcracker as the Midlands favourite family ballet.